A Century at Stanford

Jane Stanford took her jewelry collection, worth an astonishing $500,000, to Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in England, where she hoped to sell the valuables to raise funds for the University. But she found few buyers among the elite gathered to honor the queen, and brought most of them home. (A week before she died in 1905, she turned over the collection to the Board of Trustees with instructions to sell it and create a fund for the purchase of library books. They established the $500,000 Jewel Fund in 1908.)

Thomas Welton Stanford of Melbourne, Australia--youngest brother of Governor Stanford--donated 50 paintings of Australia to the Stanford Museum.

The new student union opened its doors in April. The three-story Spanish-style structure--which is known now as Old Union--cost $280,000. There were four dining halls; board was $30 a month for all meals. Bedrooms and suites for men--seniors, graduate students and bachelor faculty members--were located on the second and third floors.

Alonzo E. Taylor, head of the recently opened Food Research Institute, delivered the main address at the 31st commencement exercises in June. He spoke about the scars of the Great War and the need for universities to promote democracy, especially by encouraging tolerance and benevolence. Some 717 students received diplomas, 535 of them earning bachelor's degrees.

Trustees approved three recommendations by the War Memorial Committee for commemoration of Stanford war dead. First was a memorial book to be publicly displayed containing the names and records of each Stanford person who lost his or her life in the Spanish-American War and World Wars I and II. Second, children of World War II casualties would be given free, four-year scholarships if they could meet the minimum entrance requirements. Third, the names of those killed in World War II would be added to the foyer of Memorial Hall.

The Soviet newspaper Pravda accused the Stanford chapter of the Citizens Committee for United Nations Reform of encouraging American imperialists to destroy the United Nations.

Vietnam War protests heated up again as President Nixon sent B-52s to bomb Haiphong Harbor. An attempt to close the University by strike failed, but angry students and others trashed campus buildings, provoking confrontations with police that resulted in many injuries. More than 1,200 demonstrators tried to close El Camino Real; police arrested 205. President Richard W. Lyman joined leaders of other major private universities in Washington to tell members of Congress about the mood on campuses.

Fires of suspicious origin hit the campus: On May 18, a fire that began on an old couch at the MECHA Clubhouse (the Mexican-American Student Organization) caused little damage. But the next day, Lathrop House sustained $25,000 damage in a blaze. The day after that, pilot lights on stoves in the Women's Clubhouse were discovered to be deliberately blocked, with the unlit burners left open, but no damage resulted. On June 7, 100 firefighters from Stanford and neighboring communities fought an evening blaze that caused $1 million damage at Encina Hall, the University's main administration building. Investigators suspected arson in the fires.